Election news: Independents split – Labor Wins.

UPDATE: Oakeshott and Windsor go with The Labor Party.

Why? Because more than anything they want a long stable government. They like both packages from both parties, but the deciding factor appears to be that they think the Coalition would be more likely to call an early election because they’d be more likely to win it. Figure that. They’re admitting the Labor minority government is weaker, and that’s why they’re backing it.

Putting long-stable-government over better-government, or more popular-government is pure self-interest. The independents feel they would hold more power in a three-way-split Labor party minority, and that their power would last for longer.

And Oakeshott might get a Ministry. (Not that that has anything to do with it…)

So the plan now as the world faces the Global Financial Crisis part II is that anyone who disagrees with any government proposal needs to run active campaigns to make sure these two independents know exactly why those proposals are counter to Australia’s interests.

Steve Fielding will save us from the-Argentinian-path until July next year. After that…

…

EARLIER: One of the three independents has announced he will back the conservative coalition. That makes the tally effectively 74:74. The last two independents will decide it, but they must move together or we’ll need another election, which is the last thing the Independents would want, as they risk losing their key roles.

North Queensland independent MP Bob Katter will back the coalition to form minority government.

Mr Katter said his decision would have no bearing on fellow independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, signalling that they would be supporting Labor.

Mr Katter said he would respect Mr Windsor’s and Mr Oakeshott’s decision on which of the two major parties to back.

‘They have very moral convictions and they will follow through on those convictions,’ he told reporters inside his office at Parliament House.

Since Katter doesn’t want a carbon tax or a mining tax, it would seem bizarre for him to back the Labor Party and the Greens which want both. Wierdly though, he says he would have, if Rudd had been leader.
Katter implies the other two will go with Labor, but these Independents are in some of the most conservative seats in the country. They appear to want to go Labor, but what price paid at the next election?

Actually he might be quite smart by going early he now puts pressure on the other two give one side the majority, both come from conservative seats so it would make sense to give the libs stable government

It’s not so weird that the tres amigos might have gone with Labor, even though their electorates are strongly anti-Labor in the case of Katter and Windsor at least. Good on Katter to have resisted the bribes of Labor and stuck by the values of his own voters.

As others have pointed out, Labor, which never has had – or will ever have – a chance to win in their seats will pump 100′s of millions into their electorates to keep the mavericks in power. Whereas, the Coalition, which would own these seats without these three independent personalities has much less motivation to make these aisle-crossing buffoons look like heroes.

On the other hand, I live in New England and I can tell you that if Tony Windsor sides with those bloody anti-rural, hate-Australia first Greens and the union thugs of Labor, there will be a price to be paid at the next polls! So, Tony Windsor better make sure he has a damn good, bloody air-tight sweet deal all sown up before he sells his soul (and our votes!) to those devils…

They appear to want to go Labor, but what price paid at the next election?

I live in New England and I can tell you that if Tony Windsor sides with those bloody anti-rural, hate-Australia first Greens and the union thugs of Labor, there will be a price to be paid at the next polls!

It was obvious Labor was going to be the choice of the other two once Katter broke ranks IMO. Now Julia has to lead a party with more factional dimensions than bear thinking about…

1) Labor with all its internal factions and in-fighting.
2) Greens with their far left, ideological agendas.
3) Wilkie who has demonstrated he is duplicitous (the $1 billion request and backstab).
4) Windsor who bltantly defied his traditionally conservative electorate for a handful of pork… thinking climate change policies are somehow going to be a good outcome for agriculture. Try telling that to Mr Spencer…
5) Oakeshott – Mr. I-want-3-minute-question-time-answers-but-rabbit-on-forever-myself. I actually missed his Labor call because he had mentally put be in a trance by the time it came along. I thought poor Windsor might croak waiting for him to be done.

So exactly how is Julia going to manage her own party let alone the rest of this mess?

Bring on the next election soon… this lot is unmanageable anyway as we shall see in the next few months.

No, John it won’t be a brave move. It will be a very well paid moved. One that the people of New England might well support when the new bridges, hospitals, roads, airport facilities and school buildings begin to roll in. But we won’t like it and we will never be comfortable with it.

New England sends its taxes to Canberra and Sydney and very little ever comes back. We are a neglected backwaters while corrupt Labor wastes 100′s of millions, maybe billions, on incompetence and fantasies and windmill tilting. If Windsor support Labor, it isn’t bravery, it’s shameless realpolitik.

There is a bigger national picture. What is in the best interest of Australia? The way that the independents have been courted with pork barrel politics has nothing to do with the national best interest of Australia as a whole. And that’s the shame we must wear.

So he is backing the party with the most to lose from another election because he thinks Labor would lose if that was the case. Explain to me how this is not a complete perversion of the democratic system…

Look on the bright side, it’s going to be better than days of our drearys, more twists than reality TV, although it is likely to cost a lot more than 8c per day.
If Kev 07 has any decency in him at all he will resign in pique at not getting the full time UN job he was promised.
Surely we are only one unfortunate occurance from going to the polls again.

Rob Oakshot and Tony Windsor have worked out a
“A wicked dilema for Australia” Quote from Rob Oakshot.
Tony windsor admited the liberal party were more likely to win at a re election.
So unless things change as the votes continue to be counted we now have a gov’t he knows we will not want in the future.
So what happens now if a By election or two go the other way?

Well, Congratulations to our new prime minister. Let’s all wish the best to our new government. Cheers, mates! May they, uh, govern well…

This is really the best of all possible outcomes. Julia gets to be the first fairly elected female PM. Green Labor gets a second chance to legislate fine weather for all. Let’s hope this time instead of burning down a few hundred houses, they don’t torch the whole bloody economy!

Let the neo-socialist experiment of nationalized mining profits (raising our sovereign risk to that of, say, the Ivory Coast) and the redistributing other people’s wealth to your party’s base continue. Should be quite a show.

Meanwhile, Abbott and Co. get a few more years (or at least months) in the wilderness to hone those bush skills and hungers necessary to be effective when their turn at last comes. And come it will. For who among us doubts that the Labor Coalition of fools – Zero-growth Greens, bribed ruralists, union thugs and factions who have yet to finish their bloody purges – will not steer the ship of state directly on to the nearest reef?

One of the three independents choosing your prime minister says he wants something done about global warming (http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2984730.htm):
My personal view is the precautionary principle… If the climate scientists are wrong and we do something we’ve wasted a bit of money.

The federal MP, who has conducted a long-running and highly vocal campaign against coal mining on the Liverpool Plains, sold the family farm for more than $4.6 million – to one of Australia’s largest coal companies.

Cynic: The Labor Party won’t put up a carbon tax while Steve Fielding rules the Senate.We have until next July to convince Australia that it’s a fake scare, (and the Independents) that it would be electoral death, and leave them with a legacy as gullible fools.

It was obvious Labor was going to be the choice of the other two once Katter broke ranks IMO. Now Julia has to lead a party with more factional dimensions than bear thinking about…

The magic number is seven, plus or minus two. That represents the maximum number of factions that you can have in any polity before it starts to implode under its own weight.

Julia has got the thinnest of mandates money can buy, and will therefore be balancing on a knife edge trying to keep all of the factions playing together nicely. So I actually think that seven is very optimistic – it will be closer to five.

If the independents wanted to ensure a more stable government, they should all have gone the same way. What they have done is only marginally better in forcing a re-election now.

Why don’t we start a sweep? I will give them six to eighteen months before they are back at the polls. Any takers?

In the early nineties Nick Greiner was censured by the Corruption Commission by offering Independent Terry Metherell a ministry in his government. He was forced to resign as premier. Personally, I had no sympathy for him as he was arrogantly dismissive of anybody who disagreed with him and his Harvard degree.

For Oakeshott and Windsor to act as they have done will blight their names forever. To act in such blatant self interest i.e. to preserve themselves from untimely electoral retribution under the guise of “stability”; this is the very definition of corruption!

Windsor doesn’t have to care as he is a wealthy man (nothing wrong with that) and from all accounts will not stand again anyway. But if Oakeshott thinks that he has faced all that he will have to face from his constituents he is deluding himself even more than usual.

Maybe it’s best that the dopes who voted Green in misguided and uninformed protest get the medicine that they deserve even if the rest of us have to grin and bear it as best we can. Who knows, maybe some of the harder heads in the ALP will revolt against the electorally toxic and communistic Greens and split off. It’s happened before.

Shame really. I’d hope for a Coalition win, followed by 18 months of ineptitude and a crushing election victory for Labor

Still, its going to be a tough gig either way, and very difficult to keep the independents onside. As for a price on carbon, I’m not sure. I still think that the only thing which will get an ETS up in the US (and it doesn’t matter what we do without them) is a string of highly unusual and destructive weather events (in the US, of course).

Then again, maybe the weather is not the biggest of our worries. Maybe the tea party is.

I loved to take you up on that, but the state of play is too fluid to bet the farm just yet. Although, apparently Tony Windsor did just that! The upside of hypocrisy is flexibility.

Put me down for a year to date! Just enough time for the new Greens to stuff it up in the senate. John Brookes is right, but about the wrong party. Give the Greens enough rope to hang their true colors out for all of Australia to see and judge. Labor is already the dead man walking.

There is a reckless devil-may-care attitude in the three independents that makes them impossible to predict. Actually, it’s refreshing to see and hear crazy honest sh*t from our pollys after the driveling disarticulation that dominated Rudd-Gillard style government. You know, Let me just say….blah, blah, blah…

The bottom line:

Mr Oakeshott would not say whether Ms Gillard had given any assurances about what cuts Labor would make to the budget to accommodate the $10 billion the independents had secured for regional Australia.

“Shame really. I’d hope for a Coalition win, followed by 18 months of ineptitude and a crushing election victory for Labor”

Well, now! Substitute “Coalition” for “Labor” and vice versa in the above sentence and voila: MY hoped-for scenario came through

Except I don’t think the unholy Green Labour union will go 18 months. Unless the Australian electorate really is terminally obtuse … I’d like to think that’s not so … on the other hand, let’s start to look at where we can go live!

Then again, maybe the weather is not the biggest of our worries. Maybe the tea party is

John,

The Tea Party IS the highly unusual weather, dude! It’s a real climate change coming right at you. The consensus is that a 100-year storm is due between San Diego and Maine sometimes in early November. Better make sure all your congressmen are nailed down. Secure the senators as well. This one is a Cat 5. Glad I’m not you.

Maybe our new PM will offer catastrophe aid for all the millions of Democrats flooded out, but you’ll have to queue up behind Pakistan, Victorian, Birdsville punters and the Kiwis. Oh, be sure to bring your own bowl and wooden spoon to the helicopter food drop. Blankets provided can not be guaranteed to be small pox free.

So a billion dollars was too much pork for Wilkie’s Hobart public hospital and so had to be refused on moral grounds, but the commies have bought their way back in to power with a government-funded porn-and-piracy upgrade to the value of nearly four dozen such hospitals, and probably more by the time it’s finished (if it ever is finished).

As my mother used to say, this country has got its needs and its wants seriously confused.

But then everything is confused. Up is down, left is right, wants are needs, the world is very subtly but expensively boiling us to death despite the complete lack of any supporting evidence, and these supposed conservative idiots who are now theoretically keeping the commies in check both swallow the AGW lies without question (and backed labor because less people would vote for them if there was another election)!

I don’t know exactly. Perhaps because it seems like a popular fascist uprising? I mean, I know they aren’t fascists, but they are so damn excited. Revolutionary even. With, dare I say it, an almost religious fervour, a fanatical zeal….

That sort of thing scares me at the best of times, and right now in the US, these are not the best of times. I may not be the biggest fan of the US, but we don’t need a US with huge internal divisions.

Still, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe something like the tea party is needed to inject some sense and vibrancy into the US. But it still seems more like people yearning for something they can never have (not without bringing slavery back anyway).

You are right to be scared about the tea party. The are a bunch of radicals with really twisted notions and ideas.

Imagine a United States that actually abided by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the rule of law, and the freedom of the people with a right to pursue happiness, and the religious beliefs of their choosing.

A bunch of crackpots – what substances have they got in that “tea” anyway?

The overwhelming view from here is that this is not a bad result. Tony “the unelectable” almost knocked out Labor and he gets to box on!

Gillard “the silent conspirator” is stuck with Green policies that are backsliding in the rest of the developed world. Oakeshott and Windsor “the pretenders” have dramatically reduced their chances of re-election and their credibility in one fell swoop.

Some give Gillard 12 months and many half that. It’s a precarious balance “moving forward” KRudd is already spun out and like the other blight on Queensland is a liability. A by-election in Griffith will inevitably see a McKew result and poor performance (the benchmark of Labor) may well see supply challenged by cranky pretenders. NQ “true blue” Bob Katter has his credibility intact and his electoral future guaranteed. Windsor and Oakeshott have cut themselves adrift from their electorates and will surely rue the day they failed to see that they have been won over with promises that will never be kept.

Failure to appreciate the rate of (climate) change was Turnbull’s undoing, is warming for Oakeshotts major shortcoming and may well be the bete noir of the astro-turf Green Labor coalition. The pronouncements of Jabba the Hutt mean nothing in the brave new world of here today gone tomorrow Australian politics.

Here’s tooya Joolya. Bevan and bogan slogans and a dash of Kath day-Night do not a real PM make.

Joanne,
I disagree with you about the slowness of the carbon tax.
1) The greens are aware that they have a narrow window of opportunity (like before the next election).
2) Some serious payback is due, for installing Gillard.
3) They get it through the lower house while the numbers exist to do it.
4) It is then ready for the new green controlled senate next year.

I saw Oakeshott play five-eight for Port Macquarie, against our local team, in a season grand final.

In a gruelling game, he was hardly touched by the opposition…but only because he passed or kicked the ball as soon as he received it. Immediately. Every time.

Judging from a conversation I heard on Vic radio between Oakeshott (who’s now my local member because of a boundary realignment) and Andrew Bolt, I get the impression he still doesn’t like to be tackled.

Right now, like a plain girl in a miners’ camp, he’s delirious with all the attention and flattery. Yet as the acknowledged enabler of a Green and Labor agenda, dodging the tackles won’t be easy for him now.

From the wiki = Hill lived on two six-by-six-foot platforms mounted in a redwood tree for 738 days. The tree’s trunk was her sidewalk and exercise treadmill. Hill learned survival skills while living in the tree, such as “seldom washing the soles of her feet, because the sap helped her feet stick to the branches better.” [LOL No. She didn't "learn" not to wash her feet. The sap sticks to you for days. You can't wash it off. A normal person living on the ground will have to wait for it to shed off with the dead skin. Someone who is constantly exposed, they haven't got a choice. This whole Wiki hagography is a laugh riot. So phony.]

Hill used solar-powered cell phones for radio interviews, became an “in-tree” correspondent for a cable television show and hosted TV crews to protest old-growth clear cutting.
[Here's the thing. There is no "old growth" clear cutting of redwood in the Cascades. She invaded a privately held stand of timber. The tree she was sitting in is a clone regrown from the a burl using the real old growth trees root system, which was cut somewhere between 1890-1910. Redwoods take about 70 years to grow 150 feet. So even if loggers were to totally denude Humboldt, in seventy years the area would be reforested by huge "ancient" trees so that some latterday dipstick could build a tree house and pretend like they were saving the world. Total crap, made up fairy tale, that these were "ancient forests" by an ignorant hippy goofball flat-lander from Missouri.]

With ropes, Hill hoisted up survival supplies brought by an eight-member support crew. [If only I had an 8 man crew to help me "survive" Sacramento] To keep warm, Hill wrapped herself tight in a sleeping bag, leaving only a small hole for breathing. For meals, Hill used a single-burner propane stove.[You have to understand this is a coastal range. It never gets above room temperature in the summer, never drops below 40 in the winter. So I can't figure how sleeping in an off the shelf K-Mart sleeping bag is supposed to be an ordeal somehow akin to an arctic expedition. There's a reason hippys pick nice cozy temperate locals to "make their stand". It's because it's easy. People pay good money to go on vacation camping in the Redwood Forest because it's nice there.] Throughout her ordeal, Hill weathered freezing rains [Notice they didn't mention snow or ice.] and 40-m.p.h. winds from El Niño,[could get hairy while sitting in a tree. I'll give her that one.] helicopter harassment, a ten-day siege by company security guards, and intimidation by angry loggers. [This is according to her book - I don't give it credence. But if a logger were being put out of work, (and logging is the main industry of the Pacific Northwest) I could see them going out to where the moron is sitting in the tree and hurling a few four letter epitaphs in her direction. She certainly deserved it.]
I’m particularly amused by the wikipedia describing “butterfly’s” antics as civil disobedience. What a joke. She never spent a day in jail. Her support crew was never rounded up. As a perpetual “reward” for her actions the state allows her to ignore paying taxes on book royalties, paid speaking events, and such. What she did was uncivil obedience in that the Democrat majority of California are delighted that she single handedly disrupted the lumber industry. Just gave them more excuse to seize newly rendered “worthless” timberland, while at the same time financially hobbling taxpayers who would have contributed to their GOP rivals.

Bringing slavery back? – That’s too stupid to warrant a response.

But fortunate for you I’m kind of thick.
First of all “slavery” “discrimination” “Jim Crow” and “civil rights” are all arbitrary exercises of government power.
Hence they are the provence of what is wrongly termed the liberal or left sphere of American politics. In reality there is no such thing as left wing and right wing. The true struggle is between freedom and slavery. The power to tax is the power to destroy, the power to enslave.
Lets break it down to the personal. Do I sweat and toil to provide for the state, to make the public coffers fat, or do I work to provide for myself?

The tea party says I work for me, that I am the equal of any man in the ability to earn my own bread. That I am beholding to no king, demagogue, or bureaucrat, that because they draw their sustenance from my brow they are beholding to me.

This was the reason for the original tea party back in 1773, and it’s the reason for the tea party today.

I’ll be attending the tea party on September 12th. Trying to figure out if I should dress as the grim reaper of taxes, the ghost of health care future, or a traditional native American with warpaint.

allen, I think this is a great result as it will really thrash out the greens’ ability to perform on the main stage not the sidelines, I think that the two independents will really ensure that the ALP consider regional issues, and it does it all in conjunction with the party I think most capable at this stage to govern. These two would have been far less able to pressure any change from the Libs and I think they would have basically been used to take over their seats at the next election by repeatedly putting them in untenable positions.

I just optimistically think that we will find out a lot of unknowns with this government… far more interesting than had they sided with the Libs.

Also I guess they realised that Katter is a nutter and would ruin the country with his crazy ideas, and don’t think it is a good idea for him to have too much power.

MattB; you are a funny fellow; Lib preferences got wee willy Wilkie and the sepulchral Lee Riahnnon into power; here in NIMBY Newcastle Lib preferencing got greens 33% of the local councillor positions in the election before the last one, with a green primary vote of less than 10%. Perhaps like you the libs count with their shoes off but with their feet firmly in their frontal lobes.

Cohenite – you stated that you would have a NSW senator in this election were it not for lack of lib preferences. your post in 48 is irrelevant. Did your party have a candidate in Wilkie’s seat, or at the Newcastle council election? If not, please explain why you brought it up. Alternatively you could just admit you were wrong in your post on this website.

So John, you’re wary of the Tea Party because it’s fascist, but not fascist, and because they don’t want slavery back, and … neither do you?

Could it be that you are wary because of the kind of era that gives a popular uprising like the Tea Party the energy to coalesce? If so, I’m right with you.

The ruling class has taxed and legislated and demanded. They take from the busy middle to hand it out to the needy, the lazy, the cheats, their friends, and the too-rich. The legal system is so weak and loopholes are so large that abject corrupt market failures could ask for $800 billion to bail them out and get it.

The uprising of the Tea Party is indeed an ominous sign, but there would be no need for revolution if the laws were enforced, the constitution was strong, and the media were doing their jobs.

But I’m not an absolutist. Just because something is in the constitution doesn’t make it good. Just because there are laws doesn’t mean they are right. I look at things such as freedom as guidelines. You should only stray from them for good reasons. And so we do. If someone proves they are a danger to society, we take away their freedom. But we don’t do it lightly.

It is the same with private property. It is not some absolute handed down by an omnipotent god or all powerful monarch, it is a system which seems to work pretty well, so we stick with it, and manage it as best we can. Absolutists can’t handle this, either private property is an inalienable right, or you can just steal what you want. For them there is no middle ground.

So my fear of the tea party is that they are absolutists, for whom the world is black and white (and easy to understand!). Where might they take us? Well the French revolution started well, and had wonderful ideals, but was quickly followed by Robespierre and the reign of terror…..

John Brookes…. “So my fear of the tea party is that they are absolutists, for whom the world is black and white (and easy to understand!). Where might they take us? Well the French revolution started well, and had wonderful ideals, but was quickly followed by Robespierre and the reign of terror….”

The tea party movement are not “absolutists”…. They are Constitutionalists. As for your comments on them seeing things as “black and white”…. You are doing no less, when you simplify them with such banal terms.

Also John, your lack of understanding about the American and French revolutions is quite breathtaking….The French had their Revolution AFTER the Americans.

The Americans conducted a successful Revolution… Starting with the Boston Tea Party… Hence the Tea Party title now… The French tried to emulate the American overthrow of class and State tyranny, but failed miserably because they did not pursue Freedom like the American leadership, but instead installed the Socialist tyranny that was Robespierre, eventually ending in the irony of ironies… The Napoleon Emperor-ship.

The Thirteen British colonies in the Americas fought a civil war with the British… And won. But not only that. They thrived. America and its constitution shows how a successful free society can be wrought…. It’s people stray from that Constitution at their very peril.

The Modern Tea party movement simply remind Americans of the wisdom contained within the American Constitution… It is changeless… Just as Human behaviour is changeless.

Jo: I am really sorry that my antipodean namesake has crossed to the dark side and has thrown his lot in with the CAGW bunch. You wouldn’t believe the flak I am having to take here in the UK with those who think I have been moonlighting. Please keep up the good work: justice and truth will prevail…eventually. Just do not hold your breath! (The other) Tony Windsor

I, for one, am glad you are scared about the Tea Party. Serves you right for all the left leaning you have done. I find this quote of you most disagreeable:

Just because something is in the constitution doesn’t make it good

Paper Tiger said it very well @ 46:

Bringing slavery back? – That’s too stupid to warrant a response.

But fortunate for you I’m kind of thick.
First of all “slavery” “discrimination” “Jim Crow” and “civil rights” are all arbitrary exercises of government power.
Hence they are the provence of what is wrongly termed the liberal or left sphere of American politics. In reality there is no such thing as left wing and right wing. The true struggle is between freedom and slavery. The power to tax is the power to destroy, the power to enslave.
Lets break it down to the personal. Do I sweat and toil to provide for the state, to make the public coffers fat, or do I work to provide for myself?

The tea party says I work for me, that I am the equal of any man in the ability to earn my own bread. That I am beholding to no king, demagogue, or bureaucrat, that because they draw their sustenance from my brow they are beholding to me.

This was the reason for the original tea party back in 1773, and it’s the reason for the tea party today.

I’ll be attending the tea party on September 12th. Trying to figure out if I should dress as the grim reaper of taxes, the ghost of health care future, or a traditional native American with warpaint.

(Bold added by me)

By the way, for the many non-US readers, the Tea Party is NOT a Party in the sense you might think. It is people from all political leanings standing up for the Constitution, smaller less intrusive Federal government and less burdensome taxes.

I live in the land of the “Tea Party”. You have no idea how many people are fed up with our current government. You don’t begin to understand America. I’m sorry, but I live here and these are my people. I live what they live and I see my life’s worth of work made mockery of by a president who never held an honest job in his life, who could not tell you the difference between wealth and money (there is one) and who doesn’t care what harm he does as long as his agenda is accomplished. The current Congress has aided and abetted him in every possible way they could find.

Private property, both real and otherwise, is a founding principle of this nation. It is not something that just hangs around because it seems to work well (not even in Australia). It is not optional. It is critical to freedom. You would not want to live in a place where private property — both real estate and otherwise — is not guaranteed. Look around the world and see for yourself if you don’t believe me. Better yet, talk to Peter Spencer. Now history should show you this and I don’t know why you can’t see it.

Among other alarming things, private property rights are being eroded at an alarming rate. And Peter Spencer is an object lesson for you, John.

The Tea Party is tea parties (lower case), grassroots groups who want to do something about the direction they see this country heading. They are absolutists only in the sense that they want the Constitution and the laws of their country actually followed — carried out as though they actually mean something. They want the open government that Obama promised and then promptly stomped all over in his zeal to get his way regardless of anything. And above all, they are me, my family and neighbors. They are the many who don’t or can’t attend the rallies but nevertheless support what tea party is about

John, if you value your own country as I value mine, you could do nothing more beneficial to preserve it than get the word to the man and woman on the street about what’s happening to them and then make their discontent public. But that would require you to actually understand what’s happening and then know in your gut that you should stand against it.

When we believed that our rights descended to us from God, our creator, they were sacred and no one messed with them. Now that we believe our rights come from men they are the target of every fool, power hungry politician, cause and crusade. The UN will take everything you value from you if you let it happen. They want to be the arbiter of your rights. And your own government will be the tool through which they act. Study the UNFCCC if you don’t believe me. Google will get you there easily. Do some reading. No, do a lot of reading.

You need to decide where you stand and what you stand for as fast as you can figure it out.

As for a carbon tax bill, it would be a brave little Gillard indeed who dared rush at that.

The Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, told the Herald the government would not try to legislate the ETS even by its new delayed start year of 2013 unless there is ”credible action” by the end of 2012 from countries such as China, India and the US. It would also require a resolution of the Copenhagen deadlock over how national efforts are checked.

Roy @ 56. Great post and also timely. I see from the Bishop hill site that Blair ( in the UK ) has come out recently expressing some regrets about bring in the Freedom of Info. Act in the UK. Guess who is jumping on that bandwagon ?

Just goes to show the truth of the old adage- we get the government we deserve.
And just because he says funny things, don’t underestimate Bob Katter- he’s no fool. He’ll be the only independent after the next election.

first – i’ve read the sbs insight sceptics’ transcript and read the online comments (my own didn’t make it past the moderators, and most that did are pro-CAGW) but it would be great to hear comments from those who actually viewed the program.

ambiguous HSBC comments on the US and capntax follows in what is actually advocacy of CO2 trading. australian govt would be suicidal to implement CO2 trading/tax unless and until the US does as well. if it does take a decade in the US, who knows what the “climate” may be indicating by that time? cooling perhaps!

6 Sept: Bloomberg: Carbon Market Won’t Have U.S. Cap and Trade This Decade: HSBC
by Mathew Carr & Catherine Airlie
A U.S. greenhouse-gas trading program may not encourage low-emitting technology until after 2020, Nick Robins, an HSBC analyst, said today in an interview in London. That’s according to a “conviction scenario” for global new energy investment set out today in an e-mailed research note from the London bank…
Rich nations that have contributed most heat-trapping emissions to the atmosphere may this decade change their policies to take advantage of new energy opportunities rather than seeing carbon limits as burdening industries with additional costs, Robins said. “You’ll get more jobs, you’ll get more growth, more exports, maybe you’ll become more secure in energy,” he said…
HSBC said the global market for low-carbon energy and efficiency projects will triple to $2.2 trillion by 2020. The bank based its forecasts on the likelihood of meeting renewable energy, efficiency and carbon-dioxide emissions laws…http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-06/carbon-market-won-t-have-u-s-cap-and-trade-this-decade-hsbc.html

Here in oz grass roots groups similar to the tea party are starting to emerge, at this stage they are very small and preaching mainly to those already effected. They include the Kooee rallies, agmates and we could even include cohenite’s climate sceptics party. They are all endeavoring to alert the public of the slow and concealed removal of peoples property rites.

Agmates and the Kooee groups are both major supporters of Peter Spencer, Agmates also gave Janet and Matt Thompsons’ problems coverage on the net.

I watched the show; watching Schneider was weird knowing he has since died; but that aside he, as you’d expect, was smooth compared to the heartfelt but stumbling comments from the audience; several highlights:
1 Janet Thompson’s taking to task Schneider’s comments about acidification of the oceans; Janet said the oceans were alkaline and that the decline in alkalinity was not an indication of acidification; she stumbled a bit on the logarithmic scale of acid/alkaline measure but used the logarithmic decline of the incremental increase in atmospheric CO2
2 Case Smit raised the issue of the MWP which Schneider fudged by stating the MWP was not global and that could not be compared with AGW which was; a terrible misrepresentation, on both accounts, which unfortunately like most of Schneider’s misrepresentations, went through to the keeper.
3 The most interesting exchange was when a GP, whose name escapes me, raised the issue of the minor contribution of human CO2 [ACO2] compared with the vast quantities of natural CO2; Schneider responded by noting the natural CO2 cycle was in balance and that the increase in CO2 levels was entirely due to ACO2; Schneider used the analology of the bathtub with a tap in and a plug out; unfortunately noone raised the issues of CO2 retention times, increasing sinks, the fact that the increase in ACO2 is more than the increase in CO2, etc, so again Schneider’s bath-tub also went through to the keeper.

Although I didn’t post on the sbs site I paste the following from their site.

anthony cox

from newcastle

2010-09-05 19:15:29

climate change or AGW

AGW science is rebutted; no predictions have come true and there is a mass of contradictory evidence. The IPCC has been disgraced, with Climategate and now the IAC review which found serious flaws in the IPCC’s validation and attribution process; the IAC’s conclusion is that the certainties about AGW being real found by the IPCC were based on incorrect statisticcal methods and non-peer-reviewed information. It is a damning indictment. Given this any ETS or CPRS would be without justification.

When I checked on sunday the above quote at approx 6 agrees to every disagree. This morning they are 26 agree 120 disagree, the believers have swamped the site to bias peoples perception. There is nothing in this quote that cant be validated in MSM yet it is overwhelmed with negative votes.

The tea party here in the states is a knock on both traditional parties. Affiliation to one of the two major parties has been in decline for some time, as indicated by the increase of independent voters. The Democratic party has worked hard to vilify and characterize the tea partiers as something they are not because the tea party is so dead sent against the growth of government and its intrusion into the economy. Republican’s got trounced in 2006 and 2008 because it was hard to distiguish their policies from that of the Clinton era and in the 90′s, things seemed to run a lot better. Obama destroyed that illusion. It may be a little scarry the uncertainty that comes with a third party insurrection but its more a reflection of the loss of faith in the current system.

There is a weblog called “Skeptical Science – Getting Skeptical About Global Warming Skepticism” that has a misleading post on ocean heat content titled
Ocean cooling: skeptic arguments drowned by data

Pielke states,

The post starts by mislabeling me as a “climate change sceptic” and a “denialist”. Not only is this completely incorrect (as can be easily confirmed by reading our article

and continues,

but it sets the tone of their post as an ad hominem attack, rather than a discussion of the issue.

ad hominem attack, where have I heard those words before in reference to Skeptical Science.

1. Labor lost the election by a landslide shift to the Coalition. Abbott won more seats and the primary vote. Labor only formed government by doing what Labor always does better than the coalition—shamelessly redistributing other people’s money to consolidate power for themselves.

2. Labor is a dead man walking. Labor is hemorrhaging inner city voters from the left to the Greens and from the rational middle to the Coalition. Voter moving to the right and left are doing so for the same reason, if on different topics – labor’s inability to deliver on their promises. Windsor is right, when this government does return to the polls after doing nothing for a year or more, they’ll lose big time. Thus, the paradox is that the independent’s gift to labor is really a pox on both their houses. Better to have gone back to the polls today, instead Labor now has just enough rope to hang itself and the independents will be left holding a bill of goods.

2. Labor has lost its mandate for the agenda they proposed during the election. Rob Oakshott made it clear that tossing his lot in with Labor was not to be read as handing Julia a mandate for anything.

3.The parliament is now effectively hung. Or in drama queen terms, “it’s going to be beautiful in its ugliness.” This is bad for Labor because they’ll be unable to legislate and good for the Greens, because their policies will remain largely fuzzy feel-good tokenism, saving whales, polar bears and planets. The longer the Greens can go without actually making their zero-growth economic agenda concrete policy subject to scrutiny, the better they’ll fare.

4. Windsor and Oaky were too clever by half. Their twisted Machiavellian reasons for going with Labor in defiance of their base will soon sour to a slow drip poison. A pact with the devil they can never walk back. Worse, because parliament is effectively hung the $10 billion pork deal they struck can’t actually ever be delivered. It was all for nought.

5. What a grand time to be in opposition! For the Coalition the above is the best of all outcomes possible. Abbott’s done good. He won’t be challenged, and he’ll likely be the next prime minister well before 2014. It’s all good.

Good luck trying to push the mine tax ahead of a full consideration of the Henry Review as promised to the independents. Labor is already trying to slime out of the deal they made. Swan’s arrogance knows no bounds it seems.

Windsor in a nutshell: I backed the soon to be losers because it was my best chance to pork barrel for as long as possible because they have no hope whatsoever in the next election.

As for the destructive mining tax… just wait till Julia tries to push her legislation and the Greens want it pushed back up to the old 40% a la Rudd.

The state most impacted by the tax (i.e. us in WA) voted 11 Libs, 1 Nat, and 3 Labor as reps. That is a 4:1 ratio of Coalition:Labor and we stand to lose the most from the tax. For the life of me I can’t figure out the general apathy about the tax in this state. I guess people are tired of all the politics.

Given that the tax was to levy $6 billion annually and WA represents roughly 50% of the mineral production in Australia, it is probably no stretch to imagine approximately 50% of the tax will come from WA (but possibly more)*.

In other words the mining tax is another way to fleece another $1 billion annually from WA, as if we don’t subsidise enough through the GST redistribution already. At what point to WA citizens say enough is enough? The Premier gets it:

Thanks for the compliment. It started out quite different but I soon realized it had to be from the heart or not at all.

I’ll be the first to say that FOI has its problems. But when a politician regrets initiating it I know it’s the right thing to have.

Bob Malloy @62,

I would have guessed that Agmates would be part of it. I followed Peter Spencer’s hunger strike on Agmates because Jo couldn’t cover it day by day and I learned a lot about you Aussies. And the Australian rancher and farmer have born the brunt of idiotic government policies for a long time. So good for Agmates! And not to lessen anyone else’s efforts, good for all involved!

I only hope that no one tries a third party independent run in very many races because that will split the Conservative/Republican vote and work to give the Democrats an edge they neither deserve nor should get. We already have, I believe its Tom Tancredo, trying it for governor in Colorado under the American Constitution Party banner and he should know better.

They are all endeavoring to alert the public of the slow and concealed removal of peoples property rites.

I have thought that the US was and is entirely guided by the values of her farmers and people of farming states. Increasingly, we have seen the ever-growing populations of the east and west coast metropolitan areas, steer our politics away from those more conservative “farmer values”. The value of private property rights are potentially washed out by this phenomenon. This is compounded by green activities and the collapse of family farming.

I am happy to see the “sleeping giant” waking up with help from tea party activism.

For US commenters please be patient with Australians and see comments by people like John Brookes as an opportunity to explain what is going on. I do appreciate that John writes here, because it is so useful and so rare to find someone willing to discuss a topic and ask the questions that many skeptics wouldn’t even think of. His honesty is unusual.

The Tea Party has barely rated a mention in Australia. We don’t have the same history as the US and Europe — we haven’t ever fought for independence, and nor been under the thumb of tyranny. We’ve never really had to fight for survival on our soil. (Our head of state being someone else’s Queen).

I agree with John that a revolution is a scary thing. I hope we can restore law and order and a fair monetary system without bloodloss. But I am more afraid there won’t be a revolution and weak complacent westerners will allow the creep of corruption to slowly wipe out the extraordinary freedom our ancestors gave their lives to achieve. The largely peaceful lifestyle that we have got so used to is surrounded by tyrannies and dictators. Most countries are overrun with warlords, bribery, organized crime, or disorganised inefficiencies that let children starve even when food is available.

We somehow scored the big-time lucky draw and live (mostly) free of the fear we will be incarcerated indefinitely because someone in power doesn’t like us. Our journalists forget that we are only a whisker away from losing the freedom to speak. The cases of Peter Spencer and The Thompsons are the warning signs that we can lose our life’s work if the state so chooses to target us.

The destitute nature of school teaching of history means many of our kids (and us) never understood that the largest source of mass death, pain and suffering on the planet is “bad” government.

I am not an absolutist, and I don’t see the world in black and white, but all groups of humans need to have rules and punishment and a system that rewards honest work.

When the rules are so complex that we all “need” to hire $400/hr lawyers to interpret the rules to even know if we have broken one, then the rules are working against the people and for the rich, the powerful, the corrupt.

Just because it is in The Constitution doesn’t make it right. I agree, but if there is something wrong in the constitution it ought only be changed by a referendum, not by appointed “judges” who set precedents. In a truly free society, you are always able to convince and persuade us that your view of the rules should be the right one.

Name one strong healthy country which has weak rule of law, and optional property rights.

If the state can steal from the people then the people are slaves to that state.

I watched the Insight program and was quite disappointed. I even noticed the host intercept the conversation once or twice when a difficult question was raised (which was rare because the majority of the people speaking seemed to have been selected for their lack of knowledge). Shneider was evasive and misleading on a number of occasions … the bathtub example was particularly disingenuous but for some reason that example was enough to sway one person at the end.

It just goes to show that the average person that votes on these issues really has no idea about the science whatsoever. So we end up in the kind of situation we have today with the Greens ever more powerful in politics due to the greenwashing of the electorate with naive ideological policies. Sure they feel good on the surface, but don’t examine them with hard science and/or economics because the majority would do far more harm than good. But they feel so warm and fuzzy to the uninformed.

I notice the key issue of feedbacks was never dealt with nor the complete lack of knowledge regarding clouds in the climate models. Schneider even took the liberty of throwing a few unsubstantiated throw away lines when the audience was no longer allowed to interact.

PS> Pat I just posted a comment on the Insight blog politely suggesting that a balanced media outlet (paid for by our tax dollars) would present a follow-up program called “The Believers.” same format, but with a crowd of AGW believers in the audience (no experts allowed of course) and a well-credentialled professor (methinks the like of Lindzen would do… but I suggested no names).

It was blogged about quite a bit when the first Rudd version came out (RPST) with a tax of 40% on “super profits.” Super profits were considered to be anything over 6% return… but only applied to the mining industry.

Matt @47, I also think this is a great result by my reasons differ from yours. IMO whichever party formed government faced insurmountable difficulties.
In less than 24 hours Milne has dumped on Wong, Windsor is at odds with Swann and Brown has shown his political ineptitude by lobbying for the mining tax to return to 40% and then saying of course it wont happen. Brown does not understand politics is the art of the possible and that negativity will lose the support of the protest voters.
Its all downhill from here as the conservative independents will be under enormous pressure from their electorates and I can see them neutralising and making the Greens ineffectual. This is a poor outcome for the Greens, the best outcome for the Greens was a Labor majority in the lower house and balance of power in the senate.
We had a labor minority Government, supported by a conservative independent, in SA in 2002 and it was totally ineffectual. The independent, Peter Lewis, did not contest his seat at the next election, he was not totally stupid, but ran for the Legislative Assembly gaining 0.6% of the vote.

I just optimistically think that we will find out a lot of unknowns with this government… far more interesting than had they sided with the Libs.

I am also optimistic, its just a question of time before Labor and the Greens implode.

A couple of things about the American Tea Party Movement you would never glean from Australian mass media sources:

1. The Tea Party is the biggest grass roots mass movement in American history bar none. That’s right, by sheer numbers it’s bigger and more inclusive that the anti-war or civil rights movements in the 1960’s. It is (or was in the beginning) a totally spontaneous uprising. It’s still has no national structure of any magnitude or competence. It is a completely networked community, animated by the internet and as such is a cross national meeting of minds rather than a physical or cultural thing. It’s a new kind of tribe, based not on ethnicity, religion, class, fashion or even politics as much as pure philosophy and concern for the national good. No one even knows the full extent of the tea party demographics.

It’s the most important political phenomena in recent American history. It will be interesting when the ABC has to explain to its audience come November, when the revolution will be televized, why they “forgot” to let us know about the Tea Party movement earlier.

2. It all started with this television broadcast where reporter Rick Santelli coins the term tea party and exuberantly expresses the basic gestalt of the movement:

Notice that Mr. Santelli is so angry and full of violent racist hate that I’ll bet, by golly, he shorted corn and pork belly futures after that rant!

3. The tea party is about economics. It’s about the middle class being feed up with redistributionary taxation, over regulation, the moral hazards of bailing out investors who made bad decisions often with other peoples money. It’s about getting back to a market based economy not only of goods and services but also of ideas and innovation. It’s about smashing the myth that Big Government is the final solution to every societal woe. Of course, Obama’s and the current congress’ failure to provide useful solutions to the Mexican border crisis, the ground zero mosque fiasco and the massive government take-over of health care have added one by one to the Tea Party’s growing agenda of concerns.

5. The Tea Party is essential non-partisan, while strongly leaning towards free market economic policies and therefore the Libertarian, Republican strain of politics. The trend in America is for voters to belong to no party at all. These so-called “swing voters” now determine almost every major election in the states. If you lose the vast middle American vote, you lose.

6. The Tea Party is not a revolutionary party in the sense that a leftist or neo-Marxist would understand. It’s more of a restoration of traditional constitutional values, a return to personal and civic responsibility, and a strong work ethic. For instance when Tea Partiers rally or march they are polite, cooperate with police instructions, don’t vandalise evil multi-national store fronts and pick up their own trash, because they are essentially the mom and pop middle class types, not G-8 hooded protesters or Greenpeace eco-clowns performing media stunts.

I suppose if Labor were to have done similar with our national budget, we’d have a spontaneous mass backlash against big government too. Of course, the Americans owe their debt in US dollars. Obama’s solution is to simply print more money, while raising taxes. Historically, this hasn’t worked out too well when tried in the past.

I must beg to differ on one point… the “mosque issue.” My wife was just in NY and saw the proposed site which is a fair distance from Ground Zero (a couple blocks I believe she said), and as an American hailing from NY State she could not see what the fuss is about.

The Ground Zero mosque “issue” is largely a media beat up IMO. It is a convenient political football much like the boat refugees were in Australia for the last decade. It’s not like they are proposing to put the mosque right at Ground Zero.

Thank you for the explanation – I thought I had a good grasp on what the Tea Party was, but it goes deeper – way down.

I obviously still have a lot of learning to do. So, I have a couple of questions:

1. Any organisation of note becomes the target for infiltration from groups with counter ideas, people who will attempt to subvert the way the group sees the world, and the way the group reacts to changes in that world. One thing that I have always found curious is that the Tea Party seems to be immune to such things, why or how is that?

2. I am also Libertarian (or Republican if you like – I own a red tie with elephants on it ). But when Tea Party members go the the ballot box, they are still voting for one politician or another, and the parties they represent, and all of the baggage that brings. One of the real problems with the Westminster style of politics is that you have to take the good with the bad, so it ends up as a matter of voting for the party that you dislike the least. How do Tea Party members resolve that?

BEST IDEAS YET
I am appalled that so many of my friends are against the mosque near Ground Zero. We should allow it in order to promote tolerance.
I propose that a gay nightclub be opened next door to the mosque to promote tolerance in the mosque. We could call it “The Turban Cowboy” or “You Mecca Me Hot”.
Next door could be a butcher shop that specializes in pork and across the street a very daring lingerie store called “Victoria Keeps Nothing Secret”.

The ground zero mosque issue is multi-faceted. Books will be written about it. The basic media lie is that it’s about religious freedom. It’s not. Second media lie that Americans who oppose the mosque hate muslims.

Muslims are free to build the mosque there. It’s about an Islamic group seeking to exploit a mass grave, a site of a war crime for publicity. There are thousands of mosques in NYC. No worries. But it has become so much bigger than that on too many levels to go into in a short comment.

The Iman’s view of America’s culpability, whether true or not, is highly insensitive to 3,000 innocent victims of 911. Perhaps he should build his mosque in Queens? You know, to promote inter-faith peace.

The Tea Party is the target of infiltration. Michigan Democrats tried to start a fake tea party. Leftist activists have turned up at Tea Party rallies with racist signs. Maybe you’ve heard of “Mobying” named after the rock star who suggested back in the Bush years people should go to conservative websites and post racist or otherwise idiotic rants in support of the troops in Iraq or Bush while posing as conservatives.

Because of this, Tea Party rallies are very good spotting the Mobies. Of course, there are always genuine far right nutters too. These are weeded out as well. The same can not be said of the anti-Iraq war and anti-Bush or G-8 protesters which welcomed the most extreme Maoist, anarchist and 911 Truthers, etc into their rallies. One KKK nutter at a small town Tea Party Rally would make national headlines.

The media covers for the Leftist psychos but a single right-winger nutter is profiled to represent the whole lot right of Wayne Swan.

I’m fascinated by the role technology has in enabling this revolution even while the dominant media and political powers seek to suppress, smear and subvert the Tea Party narrative. The Internet, blogs, twitter, small cheap digital video cams and cheap airfares have shifted the balance of power from the elite decision makers to the individual, creating organizations that grow from the bottom upward, distributing power rather than centralizing it in the hands of a few. We’re at the very beginning of a socio-political paradigm shift too vast to see to the far side.

As for voting, the tea party is just starting to practice a spontaneous American version of branch stacking. They have sometimes shown up in numbers sufficient to put their own candidates on primary ballots to run against complacent established Republicans who support the status quo. The Tea Party knows that without preferences turning out a third party candidate simply divides the fiscal conservative vote. Also, as we have seen with our own independents, when they hold the balance of power, the major parties are inclined to listen.

Finally, the tea party, while it contains socially conservative elements, has been remarkably uninterested in socio-religious issues. It’s live and let live. “Big tent” politics. For instance, when a California high court ruled gay marriage was constitutional, nary a squeak was heard out of the tea party. This is remarkable because it was a distributed spontaneous decision to shrug off the ruling, not ordered from the top, since there isn’t a party elite in control. Likewise, abortion has barely registered as a tea party issue thus far. It’s truly a fiscally conservative, libertarian mass movement powered by network and miniature media technologies.

“The Internet, blogs, twitter, small cheap digital video cams and cheap airfares have shifted the balance of power from the elite decision makers to the individual, creating organizations that grow from the bottom upward, distributing power rather than centralizing it in the hands of a few. We’re at the very beginning of a socio-political paradigm shift too vast to see to the far side.”

Which is perhaps why Conroy wants his internet filter and JaniePo @103 raises another interesting point.

Thank you Wes – I appreciate the time and effort you took to explain that.

coenite: #109

If they really wanted to filter and trace they should have kept quiet about it. Once the good people know what’s going on, they can quickly find ways around it. And the more they filter, the more the good people will find ways of getting rid of them at the polls.

“The first polls of the election season are coming in and the numbers are so bad it might be a good idea to put the left on suicide watch. No one living has ever seen the types of numbers we are seeing in the polls for the midterms (though no one should be surprised by results some of us predicted over a year ago). The nation is not far left in its views, it is right of center. The nation abhors parties or politicians who make false promises, who make failed promises or who use their position if public trust for greed (theirs or their cronies). Do all three and you hit the trifecta!”

Might be a word of warning for some in Australia in the last two lines?

The Yanks are running about a decade ahead of us in socio-technological evolution, so the kind of distributed grass roots political organization we see in the tea party movement is still some where in our future politics. However, there is a a good chance that the Internet won’t remain the feral ecosystem it is today for much longer. After all, we have no Bill of Rights, just fading common law tradition. Conroy’s futile attempt to scrutinize a trillion webpages is Pythonesque, but not so Gillard’s plan to build what amounts to a government funded and therefore controlled fiber monopoly. Obviously, once established, competing independent systems, wireless, satellite and P2P will be structurally discriminated against.

In the US, some legislatures are seeking to license bloggers. As if. Taxes are sure to follow. The Orwellian Net Neutrality ruse is also a back portal attempt to seize the net by centralized technocracy. Our Pravda, the ABC, absolutely hates the freedom the internet gives to skeptics and free thinkers of all stripes to work around orthodox information management. Politically correct repression is the latest vogue in “social justice.”

I’m not suggesting a conspiracy so much as the Hegelian turning of the screw of history. The dialectic drift of cultural evolution. Civilization needs no conspiracy to turn towards dark authoritarianism. The only true conspiracy necessary is to thwart that drift. So far we have been lucky. Technology has played into the hands of individual autonomy. We would all be informational serfs by now had not the PC, internet combination arrived just in time. Now is no time for complacency.

“The Internet, blogs, twitter, small cheap digital video cams and cheap airfares have shifted the balance of power from the elite decision makers to the individual, creating organizations that grow from the bottom upward, distributing power rather than centralizing it in the hands of a few. We’re at the very beginning of a socio-political paradigm shift too vast to see to the far side.”

Wow you guys have just figured the Greens have the balance of power? well done.

Cohenite #50 “Refresh my memory about where I said TCS would have a senator if the Libs had preferenced them.”

Cohenite #64, August 23rd, 2010 at 12:55 pm, in thread titled “Duplicitous last minute declaration of intent…” “If the coalition had given their preferences to TCS, as they had been requested to, we would have had some senators.”

If the “ground zero” mosque is to be discussed then you should hear from someone who really understands the issue.

They absolutely do have the right to build a mosque on private property with private funds wherever zoning laws permit. No one worth paying attention to disputes this. However, having the right does not automatically make it the right thing to do.

On 9/11 my country and my people were the subjected to a cowardly sneak attack for no better purpose than the joy of killing those they hated. This was cold blooded murder on an unprecedented scale as well as an act of war. And they justified in the name of Islam. I sat in my office and watched landmark buildings fall in real time, killing thousands in the process. I will never forget that day and my anger at the perpetrators will never abate.

That said, I am perfectly able to understand that not all Muslims believe as do the terrorists and I’m perfectly able to live that distinction in my own life and have done so every day since 9/11. I do so in spite of the great temptation that 9/11 provided to just hate and wish for vengeance. It’s a temptation the overwhelms some as this proposed book burning nonsense marking 9/11 points out.

So what’s wrong with the mosque?

For starters, the Imam at the head of that group is in the forefront of a drive to bring Sharia law into the United States. This is anathema to our Constitution. Should this happen we would be a nation divided against itself with two sets of laws in conflict with each other. Those of Muslim faith subject to Sharia would no longer be protected by the Constitution’s guarantee of due process, protection from cruel and unusual punishment, freedom of speech and others. As an American who understands what my country is all about I can never want to see that happen. We are one nation — whether under God or not you may debate — but we are one nation under but one Constitution and one set of laws that the Constitution demands must be applied equally to all.

That however, is just the minimum complaint. It is far worse. The Islamic center contemplated there is to be named the Cordoba House (or Center). This is a reference to the mosque built in Cordoba, Spain, a monument to Islam’s conquest of Spain and their triumph over the infidels. Had the World Trade Center not been attacked this would be just a small tempest in a teapot dispute or none at all. But under present conditions it’s a thumb stuck in the eye of all Americans who went through 9/11, who lost a loved one, a friend, a colleague and all the rest of us who could only watch in numbed disbelief as the tragedy unfolded. This is what’s wrong with the mosque

Then there is the fact that it is to be dedicated on the tenth anniversary of the attack. No! This is the worst of it and also a thumb in the eye of all Americans. Need I say why? This is also wrong with the mosque

Even Muslim Americans have spoken out against this particular mosque.

This is not a matter of rights. It’s a matter of what is seen by millions as desecration of a sacred site, a site that is the burial ground of many who perished that day — the only grave site they will ever have (yes, human remains continue to be found there). Muslims must have been among them as with Jews, Christians and all others. And that is a matter for the planned memorial at the site. Not a mosque!

This is not Islamophobia. Muslims have been welcomed into this country with open arms for many years. This is a simple matter of desecration of a sacred site by one, at best, insensitive group and at worst willful intent to insult and anger. I prefer to think the former. But I do not trust this Imam’s intentions.

Muslims ask for respect. And yes, they should get it! But respect is a two-way street.

I feel like I’ve been lecturing lately. Forgive me! But a couple of issues are festering sores with so many in this country and they are not being listened to. The mosque in question is one of those. Tolerance is becoming synonymous with giving away the store. And I can’t take that silently.

115Roy Hogue:
September 9th, 2010 at 3:03 am
If the “ground zero” mosque is to be discussed then you should hear from someone who really understands the issue.

Those who understand it even better are Muslims themselves — see here and here

Selected quote:

“We Muslims know the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation”

(BTY: Those Muslims who speak out thusly are always subjected to numerious death threats and have to protect themselves.)

Indeed — building mosques on the ruins of a conquered people’s sacred sites has been a Muslim tradition for well over 1000 years. This mosque is even named for one of the more famous examples, as Roy notes.

Anyone with half a brain knows that this mosque will not promote tolerance, nor is that its intent.

I live in a place (Boulder, Colorado) filled with “Progressives” who will distort the zoning laws beyond recognition to prevent a Presbyterian church from expanding; but who all pat themselves on the back for supporting the Ground Zero Mosque — go figure. (Lemmings come to mind.)

… my people were the subjected to a cowardly sneak attack for no better purpose than the joy of killing those they hated.

Why did they do that? What brought a dozen reasonably bright engineers to commit suicide, and in so doing commit mass murder? How are they different from other Muslims, because they are?

Even Muslims I work with, know well, and would trust with my life, find it hard to understand.

Those reasonably bright engineers did what they did because they believed in something that we cannot understand. It was not about the fourteen virgins, or whatever. It was much deeper than that.

What the world witnessed, on auto-repeat, on September 11, was not so much an act of terror (for terror is an outcome, not a cause), but a “catharsis of conviction”.

It was the release of pent-up emotion that had been instilled in those young men over hours, days, weeks, months and years, by very skilful, and very cynical, handlers, teachers, and guides.

Gengis Kahn, Charlmagne, Bonaparte, Stalin, Hitler, bin Laden – megalomaniacs all; and all with the charisma and oratory power to inspire great deeds of destruction.

Their power came from being able to manipulate people with words – arguments that contain equal measure of fear, uncertainty, and doubt – what I would call propaganda, or to be more politically correct for this age, public relations, spin doctoring, new spek …

At the base of it all, it was the words of a megalomaniac that caused the deaths of all those people on 9/11.

But he is not the only one. The global warming scare is also about fear, uncertainty, and doubt in equal measure. That too is being driven by people with tendencies towards megalomania.

8 Sept: ABC: Timothy McDonald: Climate’s right for change to carbon debate
Greens MP Adam Bandt and the independents who threw their lot in with Labor have made it clear they would like to see the Federal Government take action to address climate change..
“I support the precautionary principle and whether it applies to a market or not, or is carbon tax or whatever else, but if the climate scientists are in fact right and we do nothing, what have we done to future generations?” independent MP Tony Windsor said…
Mr Connor (Climate Institute) says the election outcome should serve as a warning to Labor and the Coalition that the electorate wants action…http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/08/3006435.htm?section=justin

7 Sep: WSJ: 2nd UPDATE: NYSE Euronext To Expand Carbon Trading To US, Asia
“Given Congress’s inability or unwillingness to create a nationwide cap-and-trade program, at least for the next three to five years, most of the transactions that have the potential to be exchange-based are going to be in Europe,” said William Bumpers, head of climate-change practice for Baker Botts LLP…
NYSE Euronext is contributing its ownership in BlueNext in return for a majority stake in the enlarged venture. APX shareholders, including Goldman Sachs & Co. (GS), MissionPoint Capital Partners and Onset Ventures, will get a minority interest in return for the APX business. …http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100907-711045.html

8 Sept: Fox: EXCLUSIVE: After a Year of Setbacks, U.N. Looks to Take Charge of World’s Agenda
Details concerning the two-day, closed-door sessions in the comfortable village of Alpbach were closely guarded. Nonetheless, position papers for the meeting obtained by Fox News indicate that the topics included:
– how to restore “climate change” as a top global priority after the fiasco of last year’s Copenhagen summit;
– how to continue to try to make global redistribution of wealth the real basis of that climate agenda, and widen the discussion further to encompass the idea of “global public goods”;..http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/09/08/years-setbacks-looks-world-leader/?test=latestnews

I ain’t going to start a flame war because I sit very much in the middle politically speaking, but the US is somewhat myopic as a society when it comes to foreign affairs. While the country has shown great charity in many cases it has also brought much misery to states which it deems not to be “most favoured” status. As a consequence some countries will speak highly of the US while others see you as the devil (ask Chavez LOL… he’s a clown too, but whatever… the US is an easy political target for him).

Were the US geographically part of mainland Europe the citizens would have a very different perspective of world affairs, but the separation from the world’s hot spots by at least an Ocean changes things dramatically. If the US and Russia were swapped in geographic position think how different the world would be.

Anywho… I am rambling… just saying there are some countries in the world which have a legitimate gripe with the US and they are rich hunting grounds for those who seek to promote terror on US soil. This is common sense and surely beyond debate. You don’t solve this problem by going to war with them.*

* You need to build McDonalds franchises in enemy states… one theory (not yet discreditted to my knowledge) states that no two countries with McDonald’s outlets ever go to war with each other. So make BigMacs** not war!

** religious limitations may have to alter the contents of said burgers somewhat from state to state…

I live in a place (Boulder, Colorado) filled with “Progressives” who will distort the zoning laws beyond recognition to prevent a Presbyterian church from expanding; but who all pat themselves on the back for supporting the Ground Zero Mosque…

At a packed Manhattan art opening in 1998 I got stuck into a conversation with Andre Serrano, an artist famous for his work “Piss Christ,” which was a photograph of crucifix sealed in a jar of his wee. Andre was a surprisingly down to earth bloke. I asked him why he made Piss Christ in the course of the conversation and he said it was the most shocking thing he could think of at the time, plus it looked really cool, and you know competition for attention in the NYC art scene is fierce. It worked. He was universally lauded by critics as boldly transgressing the last taboos of our moribund civilization. A hero of free expression. Big time art shows, international awards, documentaries and museum purchases soon followed. Piss Christ was his meal ticket to the big league.

Fast forward to 2010: A crazed evangelist in Florida says he’s going to burn a pile of Korans on Sept 11. Have our cultural intelligentsia lauded him as a hero of free expression bolding transgressing the taboos of a moribund civilization? Not quite.

So it’s haute art when a funky artist displays a crucifix in a jar of piss, but a crime against humanity for a nutter in Florida to burn Korans?

Or is it just practical appeasement? Put a crucifix in a jar of piss and Christians will balk. Who cares? Clingers to guns and bibles in flyover country. Pfft. Burn a Koran, and people are definitely gonna to get blown away!

According to the American Bill of Rights. The muslims have a right to build a mosque near ground zero. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. And Serrano and the Florida preacher have the right trash their own private property as act of art or whatever. First Amendment, also.

Yet, just because one has the “inalienable” right to build a mosque next to the mass graves of 911 or dunk a crucifix in a bottle of piss doesn’t foreclose on other people’s right of free expression to vigorous oppose, protest and even organize against these acts as obnoxious to common sense.

What I find offensive in all this is the cowardly hypocrisy of the double standard our media and political elite have applied to Islam and Christianity.

You have no “flame war” with me. But I hope you’ll give me an example of a country with a legitimate gripe against the U.S. so I know exactly what you’re talking about. Who knows? I might agree with you. We’re not perfect. But do you think, for instance, that our current president is a solution to that?

For the record – I’m an AGW Sceptic, and a conservative voter. But if you haven’t noticed, this new parliament will most likely drag down the Labor party and the Greens (hence the poisoned chalice), – which is a good thing for the conservative parties.

I also thought it was obvious what a “courageous political decision” is. I.e. a political disaster for the politician making the “courageous political decision”. Thus the 2 independents that have sided with Labor will most likely not keep there seats at the next election. Blinded by power and self importance they have just killed their political futures by departing from their core “conservative” constituents.

Hence the wish for the next election to hurry up and arrive…

BTW: What specific comment was troll like? I don’t get your reasoning???

Rereke Whaakaro:
“But when Tea Party members go the the ballot box, they are still voting for one politician or another, and the parties they represent, and all of the baggage that brings. One of the real problems with the Westminster style of politics is that you have to take the good with the bad, so it ends up as a matter of voting for the party that you dislike the least. How do Tea Party members resolve that?”

RW, one of the key advantages US voters have is that they can, if they wish, register with a party and vote in the primaries to decide who the candidate for that party will be. If Tea Party members are sufficient in number and vote in the primary, they could ensure that their own candidate is nominated by the party.

That tinkling sound you hear is all the pennies dropping in my head, all at once.

Y’know, I lived and worked in the U.S. (well, California, which is sort of close) for over five years. And I never really got my head around what the primaries were all about, apart from a good excuse for a party or two.

While the country has shown great charity in many cases it has also brought much misery to states which it deems not to be “most favoured” status. As a consequence some countries will speak highly of the US while others see you as the devil…

We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in.

Colin Powell, U.S. Secretary of State
Speech To World Economic Council
26 January 2003

The United States of America had the largest military the world had ever seen at the conclusion of World War II. Moreover, we were the sole possessor of the atomic bomb. Rather than conquer the world we rebuilt the countries we defeated. Germany, Japan and Italy are now amongst the world’s greatest democracies. We defeated the Soviet Union without even firing a shot. Every democracy on this planet owes its existence to the U.S. nuclear umbrella and America’s resolve to defeat communism.

Are we perfect? Hell no! Every great power that has existed before the rise of America as the worlds hyper power has attempted to conquer the world. When England was a great power the sun never set on the British Empire. Britannia not only ruled the waves but at one point three-fifths of the world’s soil. I dare anyone to cite one great power in human history that has done what the U.S. has done. We actually liberated countries, rebuilt them and left. The closest America ever came to being a colonial power occurred with the conclusion of the Spanish American War and the possessions ceded by Spain.

I have noted a few posters commenting on the American Revolutionary War. The truth of the matter was that the war was about money and power. The landed aristocracy of the American Colonies waged war against their lawful king to cut the British out of the loop and keep more of the money for themselves. The tea party that occurred in Boston was not a protest against taxes. The Sons of Liberty was an organization composed primarily of tea smugglers. The British were going to dump a bunch of cheap tea on the market and drive the smugglers out of business.The smugglers, under the guise of a tax protest, disguised themselves as Indians and dumped the tea in Boston Harbor. The reason America won the war was French intervention and the staggering cost to the English Crown.

When The United States was founded only white males who owned land were allowed to vote. When you did vote, your employer knew how you voted and would fire you if you didn’t vote the way he wanted you to. We adopted the private ballot in the late 1800s (The “Australian Ballot”). What is amazing is how America evolved into what it is today, a country where people enjoy a level of freedom unlike anything the world has ever seen. That is the real miracle of America.

As far as other countries seeing us as the devil they are entitled to their opinion. That being said, any country foolish enough to challenge the military might of the United States is only a statistic waiting to happen.

The topic was Australian politics and, as I have stated before, I do not feel it would be proper for me to comment on the politics of Oz. However, when posters start talking about American politics I have no compunction whatsoever about expressing my opinion. The next time any of you see an American flag remember this: Our colors never run!

Roy Hogue (#128): “Can we build Burger King instead? The hamburgers are so much better than McDonalds”

Roy, I have ofted felt a gereat respect for your views posted here. But now you have taken a step backwards. Everybody knows that neither McDonalds nor Burger King have anything that comes close to legitimately being called a “hamburger”. Sheesh, next you’ll be saying you accept that they are “restaurants”!

(Well, not unless they have changed in the last 20 years or so, which is about how long it has been since I visited either establishment!)

Ditto ditto ditto and ditto to all you’ve said.
All global powers will have their detractors, but….
(insert music symbol here) “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone” (insert another music symbol here)

just one small correction Eddy – you said “We actually liberated countries, rebuilt them and left. ” – I direct you to the huge military bases in Germany, Japan, South Korea and the Pacific, in fact the US has military bases throughout the world, probably more than most people realise.

You Yanks shouldn’t worry, I’m sure everyone hated the Poms when they were the world power. Actually, come to think of it, you guys hated the Poms at that time so much you threw them out!

On a more serious note, as an Aussie (pronounced ozzy puhlease..), I’ve always felt we should get a vote in US elections, as your foreign policies help decide what happens in the world, and we don’t get a say.

May I suggest you revisit McDonalds and check out their latest range of “little bit fancy” burgers. The latest Angus IIIrd burger is excellent – tastey all meat paddy, tomato, lettuce with rocket, mayo, sweet chilli sauce and a sourdough bun. Better than my local hamburger/cafe makes. I wash it down with an apple juice.

“A legitimate gripe” depends on your POV. I would suggest for starters the people of Afghanistan and Iraq would have one based on the amount of women and children your country men have slaughtered all in the name of building oil and gas pipelines and then controlling said oil and gas, using DU weapons does not help the cause either. Of course Iran would have one because the USA signed up to the Nuclear non proliferation treaty with them and are therfore obligated under said treaty to assist Iran in building a nuke power station unfortunately the USA have done nothing but hinder the process.

Lets see you also bit the Russian hand that was holding the olive branch, you have troops in all corners of the globe where they are not welcome. Most of the arab world would spit on you if you got close enough but the important thing is Israel is your friend via a “special relationship” mind you Israel have a legitimate gripe as you dont give them enough money or shiny new bombs. Having said that the USA did pay for the Israeli roads in the new settlements (stolen land from Palistine) whilst infrustructure in your homeland crumbles around you.

Your use of torture against people you hold for years without charge means the USA have effectively withdrawn from all human rights treaties, your secret service travel the world incognito leaving a trail of mayhem and distruption.

Your President and government cost Israel a lot of money (actually your tax money) so i do not think he is the solution.

Roy @ 127:
I would hate to start naming names to get Eddy rankled because I just don’t want this to descend into a flame war. Being the sole remaining superpower after the fall of the Soviet Union has been a thankless task for the US… damned if you do something, damned if you don’t. I doubt anyone else would want to be policeman to the world either even if they could. Heck, the UN is pretty much useless in that regard.

The problem is that regardless of whether the US has been right or wrong in the numerous regime changes it has been involved with, or sanctions or whatever, there will have been civilians that will have been losers as a consequence. These people are easy pickings for those that wish to generate terrorist followers willing to take the battle to US soil.

Of course this is stereotyping as well. I am sure that there are plenty of educated youngsters that have a perception (rightly or wrongly) that their country has been disadvantaged by the US, and some of them will be easily swayed too. impressionable minds are a plenty… just look at all the people who follow the AGW mob without questioning the science.

I posted originally because I often get the feeling US citizens are surprised that they are being targetted by terrorists. To me this is hardly surprising and a truth many European countries have lived with for centuries. Clearly it is unwise to poke the largest military complex in the world, but when they are largely stateless terrorists I am sure they feel they can do it with relative impunity.

Given we don’t really know where the organisers are, or even whether they are alive or dead in most cases, would seem to be ample evidence of that. Like hydras these organisations will continually grow new heads.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anywho… back in Oz I am going to love watching the new rainbow alliance try to herd the cats to get anything done. I think it will make for fascinating politics in the months ahead… if Tony is wise he will do as little as possible and let the Government implode on itself.

just one small correction Eddy – you said “We actually liberated countries, rebuilt them and left. ” – I direct you to the huge military bases in Germany, Japan, South Korea and the Pacific, in fact the US has military bases throughout the world, probably more than most people realise.

The U.S has the bases you mentioned and others, as well. We are there with the permission of the host countries. We provide protection and we honor our treaty obligations to them. If they want us to leave all they have to do is ask. The Philippines asked us to leave and we did. Their economy suffered because of it. The Japanese considered asking us to leave and then the North Koreans ratcheted up tensions in the area. Whenever an ally of the United States is threatened by a potential enemy they sleep soundly at night knowing that when they wake up in the morning the United States will still be there for them.

@Cracker24′s rant @#141
We are not a perfect country as we are a country composed of imperfect humans. During the cold war we played situation ethics. In fact, we gave Saddam Hussein the chemical weapons that he later used on his own people. Saddam Hussein told his American interrogators that he started the weapons of mass destruction myth himself as a deterrent to stop the Iranians from igniting a new war.

Saddam was a threat to middle east peace and a threat to a large portion of the worlds oil supply. He had to go. He was a butcher and a perpetrator of crimes against humanity. The U.S did everything in its power to minimize civilian casualties.

Iran is a rogue nation intent on developing nuclear weapons and “wiping Israel off the map.” Their desire to build a nuclear reactor is a covert attempt to develop fuel for nuclear weapons. When A.Q. Kahn gave them a blueprint and the design for a nuclear weapon the Iranians claimed that it was something extra that was accidentally given to them. You, know, kinda like getting an extra toy in a box of cereal!

Israel was the victim of a pogrom initiated by the muslims in the early 1900s. You should read the works of a scolar named Bat YorThe Koran specifies that every country must be conquered for Allah. people of “the other books” (i.e. Jews and Christians) are allowed to live under something akin to Jim Crow law in the Antebellum southern United States or apartheid and everybody else was forced to convert or be put to the sword. I suggest you read the collective works of Bat Ye’or. Also, skip the Protocols of The Elders of Zion. It is amazing to see anti semitism is alive and well. The poor Palestinians and there “stolen” land. When the countries of the world, including the United States and Australia, return the land they “stole” from the indigenous people who originally occupied the land, then I will consider the pleas of the Palestinians worthy of consideration. How far back in history do you want to go? Shall we give the land back to those who were their when Joshua arrived?

I remember the P celebrating the deaths of Americans on September 11, 2001. If the muslim countries feel so much compassion for them then why don’t they just relocate the ones in the camps in Lebanon and Syria into their countries?

Israel is the only stable democracy in the Middle East and the money it receives from the U.S. is money well spent by the U.S taxpayer. The “torture” you mention is comprised primarily of water boarding although I am sure the CIA has done worse. If you want to wring your little soft hands and whine about the occasional misuse of U.S. power go right ahead. Just remember that the reason you have the freedom to do so is because it was purchased with the blood of American soldiers.

The Russians? Do not kid yourself. If the Russians had their way you would be living under their heel and your standard of living would be a lot lower than what it is now. Troops not welcome? See my response to Janama at the beginning of this post.

Remember, if it wasn’t for the U.S you would be speaking Japanese, German, Russian or Chinese. Tonight when you go to bed get down on your hands and knees and thank God for what the U.S. has done for you and everyone else on this planet. We are not perfect but I will put our record up against any great power that has ever existed, period! At least we have the humility to admit we are not perfect. And what has the U.S demanded from you in return? Nothing, except that you enjoy your freedom.

Janama, military bases is what you get with a superpower. In many instances, these bases deter cross-border and civil uprisings. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is up for debate.

Watch what happens in the future with Chinas rise. Invest heavily in infrastructure in third world countries, (say Africa) wait until some renegades atttack the infrastructure, then install a base to defend the infrastructure. This is nothing new or unusual in geopolitics.

You’ve perfectly articulated the American position. However, you say that America didn’t behave like the Soviets would have after WWII. Well, duh, that’s because the Soviets were barbaric Russian commies. Nor did the Yanks impose a classic coercion-based empire upon the world like the British and Spanish did when they rose to power some centuries earlier. Well, double-duh, if you had you wouldn’t have been Americans, but some sort of Anglo fascist sci-fi alternative universe thingy from a bad Star Trek episode. Hypotheticals about what the world would be like without America are kind of, well, problematic. It’s like saying to your wife, you should be grateful that I don’t beat the sh*t out of you! Well, yeah, I suppose so. But demanding gratitude for simply behaving civilized is rather odd.

So Thank You for not enslaving the world by force. Of course you didn’t have too. Americans conquered the world with big bands, jazz and rock-n-roll, blue jeans, Coca-Cola, Fords, Jeeps and Hollywood movies. Even today “Democracy, whisky, sexy” is still making inroads in the last strongholds of barbarism.

It was never in the cards that a post-WWII America was going to behave like Roman legions, Nazis or even the Dutch East Indies Corporation. Certainly, the world owes America a debt of gratitude for the utterly visionary and generous Marshall plan and the democratization of Japan. (Special thanks is owed from Australia for the Battle of the Coral Sea.)

Nevertheless, a civilizational phase shift occurred in west between WWI and WWII, led by the United States, that made it unthinkable that America would so much as impose its will on the world as seduce the planet with song, film and free markets of good, services and ideas. The original American founding documents, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers powered this new globalist American gestalt. But it goes back further to John Locke, Montequieu, Thomas Paine, Hume, and perhaps most of all to the Scot, Adam Smith, author of the Wealth of Nations.

Then in 1979 just as American power seemed to be waning (President Carter called it the Malaise) innovative Yanks invented the Graphical User Interface and sold every second bloody person on the planet a PC. It was can do DARPA that brought us the Info Highway. Intel and Motorola supplied the processors. Reagan bucked up to the Soviets and defeated them peacefully.

So what’s next from those wacky Americans? Obama is the new Carter and America is deep in a new funk from which pundits everywhere predict is the beginning of the end. China rising. The mullahs soon will have the bomb. My bet is that Pax Americana still has some wind in it yet. These are the kind of times in which the American can do spirit rises to the challenge. Don’t be surprised if they don’t bring Obama along with them for the ride.

We Aussie should be just as proud, because we are part of the bigger picture. Eddie noted the secret ballot was introduced as the “Australian Ballot.” Aussies also introduced the idea of suffrage for women to the Yanks. American jurisprudence and culture is based upon British common law. Brookes thinks we are so connected we should be able to vote in the US. We are all brothers and sisters of the Anglosphere. More related to each other by language, law, tradition, commerce and tribe than with Europe or Asia. In fundamental ways the Pommy spirit is the fount of the Aussie Spirit and it’s all connected to the American Spirit. Canada and the Kiwi’s too.

So Eddie, America is not really alone but part of the Anglo family. We’re your best friends.

“A rant which you are fully entitled to make. (some will say thnx to the USA)”

Hang on, Baa Humbug, that’s the sort of bad attitude that got Yankee ass whooped in Brisbane pubs circa 1943. I’ve said to Eddie, Thank You, Mate for Winning the Battle of the Coral Sea. Not that you did it to save Australia, mind you, that was simply a positive collateral effect.

I think you guys need to drop this attitude that the world owes America endless shouts at the pub every time you walk in the door for things done in grand dad’s time.

Or perhaps you’d like me to spell it out for you in French or Spanish, mate? After all if it weren’t for Her Majesty’s Navy and the British Empire those are just a few of the languages you jerks would be speaking now.

I have too much respect for you to take this too much further….stuff it.

1, This quote is not accurate “wiping Israel off the map.” this is an understandable misunderstanding due to translation from one langauge to another. The actual quote is “The regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time,”

2, In regards to Iran being a rogue nation, all 16 of your countries intelligence services have said with hand on heart Iran are not building a bomb also the UN atomic agency have said Iran are not building a bomb this is primarily because they dont have and will not for many years have the ability to refine the Uranium from 20% for a reactor to 97% for a bomb, but still the drum beats of war get louder and louder. But let us suppose they are trying to build a bomb, can you really blame them. As i type the country with the largest stockpile of nukes and the only one to unleash such horror on innocent civilians sits numerous warships off its shores along with the another nuclear armed country (Israel, see Dimona). Do you not see the Iran build up to war is just a re run of the Iraq buildup? The Iraq builup was based on bullshit and so is this.

3, In regards to “poor little Israel” the only thing i need to read to get a good understanding of the situation is all the UN resolutions Israel has ignored, apparently the deal was after the war Israelis could go and live in Palistine as Palistinians….they are well worth the read.

4, “I remember the P celebrating the deaths of Americans on September 11, 2001.” To be honest Ed i would not worry much about these guys i would however be very concerned about the 5 dancing Iraelis that Carl Cameron from FOX reported on, you know the ones that filmed the whole thing and were seen rejoicing and cheering?

5, No one asked you to be world policemen so stop doing it, police dont go around the world killing brown people so stop it.

6, This statement makes me want to throw up, “Remember, if it wasn’t for the U.S you would be speaking Japanese, German, Russian or Chinese”. No wonder most of the planet think your country sucks.

Get real man. The only way you or I are ever going to participate in terrorism is to get blown up by a terrorist! Chomsky’s advice is in itself a kind of rhetorical terrorism. For it morally equates the mass murderer with his victims. It implies the victims of terrorism willingly submit to being murdered because they provoke the terrorists into killing them.

It’s the same sociopathic reasoning behind the imams who claim that women who dress in western styles provoke men to rape them.

Allen, if you’re reading Noam Chomsky without the prerequisite post-graduate background in logic, philosophy and history then you will do yourself irreparable cognitive damage. I hope my warning isn’t too late.

The USA is the only country that had the ability to create a world empire but declined to do so, and supported independence and freedom for others instead. (We may well be the only one history will ever see.)

This makes us the enemy of everyone who yearns for domination (e.g. Chavez) — either of the world or only their corner of it.

There is much criticism of the United States because it is free, easy, and carries no risks. (See wes george’s post at #126 about Piss-Christ vs. burning Korans.) The perfect target of authoritarians looking for a scapegoat. There are always some people who can be swayed into giving up their freedom — freedom requires responsibility and is scary.

Try to imagine a world where Islam ruled (instead of the principles the US tries to promote) before you casually decide which side to come down on.

Bulldust:
September 9th, 2010 at 11:03 am

I ain’t going to start a flame war because I sit very much in the middle politically speaking, but the US is somewhat myopic as a society when it comes to foreign affairs.

What do you suggest? We should behave more like Rome? What the US is doing has never been tried before in history — trial and error is inevitable. I think you are the myopic one.

Gentle folks, please, lets not let this get ugly. This US citizen truly believes the world is what we have today because we all came together to deal with the historic “wrongs”. Is the world perfect yet? NO. Have we been able to change troublesome tendencies of human nature? NO. Are we still trying? I believe so……

I would happily toss keys to our “world police car” to any country that could drive it. That car handles badly, goes too slow and costs way too much for fuel and repairs. I’m tired of paying for it.
Any takers?
I think probably not…..

Imagine what would happen if we just junked the “car” and let things work themselves out……I think the UN can take care of things.

janama, I’ve been chewing over what you said as this thread takes a u-turn to gringo lynch-ville and, being a bit of a cinemaphile, I’ve considered what you said about the Australian movie industry.

I’ve got a personal collection of several hundred movies; imo the best Australian movie about Australia is Wake in Fright; unlike most of the Australian efforts its insights and flavour aren’t filtered through a sensibility which begins at Erskenville and ends at Paddington.

Too many Australian movies are made to satisfy a pc criteria and at best patronise the Australian character as being eccentric in that laconic Chips Rafferty way. Having said that, Australian movies about genuine characters such as Shine, Muriel’s Wedding and Chopper, bypass such constraints and are world class. Apart from a few others such as The Boys most of the rest of the acclaimed ones barely get past cute.

But I’m willing to listen to any other suggestions you may care to make.

Ed,
I have too much respect for you to take this too much further….stuff it.

Wow! Thanks for your kind words. Remember, if you were in a muslim country and you spoke in a way that was deemed offensive you would be “disappeared”. The only thing we want you to do is enjoy your freedom. It seems to gall you to know end that the only reason you can be rude is due to what the U.S. has done for you and everyone else on the planet.

“The regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time,”

The Iranian government wants to destroy Israel because it is run by a bunch of religious fanatics. Do you really want to live under sharia law? The Iranians don’t! Too bad they have elections that are rigged.

But let us suppose they are trying to build a bomb, can you really blame them. As i type the country with the largest stockpile of nukes and the only one to unleash such horror on innocent civilians sits numerous warships off its shores along with the another nuclear armed country (Israel, see Dimona). Do you not see the Iran build up to war is just a re run of the Iraq buildup?

Wow! You are sound like a muslim extremist! Quit puking your revisionist history all over us.[snip] We killed more Japanese with the firebombing raids then we did with two small atom bombs. If we would have invaded Japan the cost in American lives would have been tremendous. They started a war and they got their asses kicked. If they had the bomb they would have used it.

The Arabs do not have a problem with either the U.S. or Israel taking out the Iranian nuclear facilities. If Iran develops the bomb it will start an arms race in the middle east. Is that what you want? If you were a small democracy surrounded by countries who want to destroy you would you use your nukes? I am amazed by the restraint the Israelis have demonstrated so far.

You mentioned the UN and its resolutions. So what? The UN is the most corrupt organization on the planet. Just look at the list of countries that sits on the human rights commission.

5, No one asked you to be world policemen so stop doing it, police dont go around the world killing brown people so stop it

The Pax Americana has been a blessing to the world. We tried Isolationism after World War I and the result was World War II. Start living in the real world.

This statement makes me want to throw up, “Remember, if it wasn’t for the U.S you would be speaking Japanese, German, Russian or Chinese”. No wonder most of the planet think your country sucks.

Why do you want to throw up? It is the truth and you know it. You mentioned “brown people” in your post. If the entire world hates us so much why are so many “brown people” trying to get in to our country?

I learned all I needed to know about the “peaceful religion” of Islam on 9/11. The majority of muslims are nice people but about 200 million of them are not. [snip... lets not go quite that far]

Salaam Crackar!

A Wes George #150

Great post and I couldn’t agree more. Australians are some of my favorite people in the world. If someone was taking pot shots at Australia on this post I am sure the Aussies wouldn’t take too kindly to it. Why is it that people like Crackar can pop off with their anti American views and think that we Americans are supposed to take it lying down?

janama:
September 9th, 2010 at 8:46 pm

surely that explains my point – don’t f**k with the US as they will screw your economy and they are global.

So, when asked to leave we comply and we are responsible for the economic repercussions? What were we supposed to do, send them a check every month for the money our service personnel would have spent? What a weak, ridiculous statement, Janama. Is that the best you can do?

Or perhaps you’d like me to spell it out for you in French or Spanish, mate? After all if it weren’t for Her Majesty’s Navy and the British Empire those are just a few of the languages you jerks would be speaking now.

wes, I’ll leave it at this; I went to see Sunday Too Far Away with a fondly remembered girlfriend at the time; we broke up soon after and although no reason was proffered [this being the beginning of the women's lib era] I can’t help but feel it had something to do with the scene in which Jack Thompson did his washing bare-arsed and I suffered by comparison.

Quite a few years ago, I was in Boston doing the tourist thing. At one of the tourist shops they were selling “real boston Tea” -i.e. samples of the tea that was thrown overboard. It looked a bit overpriced, but I took it to the counter anyway.

I forget how much it was, but the lady behind the counter explained that there was a sales tax I had to pay as well.

I said she could keep the tea. Revolutions have started over this sort of thing, I explained.

On a more serious note, as an Aussie (pronounced ozzy puhlease..), I’ve always felt we should get a vote in US elections, as your foreign policies help decide what happens in the world, and we don’t get a say.

Get real man. The only way you or I are ever going to participate in terrorism is to get blown up by a terrorist! Chomsky’s advice is in itself a kind of rhetorical terrorism. For it morally equates the mass murderer with his victims. It implies the victims of terrorism willingly submit to being murdered because they provoke the terrorists into killing them.

Wes; you have completely misunderstood Chomsky’s quote. It relates to terrorism initiated by a state against another state. Many countries including our own are guilty of terrorism and by condoning the actions of our government we are complicit. With regard to US;

US Federal criminal code

The United States has defined terrorism under the Federal criminal code. 18 U.S.C. §2331[51] defines terrorism as:

…activities that involve violent… or life-threatening acts… that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State and… appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping….”

Commenting on the genesis of this provision, Edward Peck, former U.S. Chief of Mission in Iraq (under Jimmy Carter) and former ambassador to Mauritania said:

In 1985, when I was the Deputy Director of the Reagan White House Task Force on Terrorism, [my working group was asked] to come up with a definition of terrorism that could be used throughout the government.

We produced about six, and each and every case, they were rejected, because careful reading would indicate that our own country had been involved in some of those activities.

[…] After the task force concluded its work, Congress [passed] U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2331 … the US definition of terrorism. […] one of the terms, “international terrorism,” means “activities that,” I quote, “appear to be intended to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.” […]

Yes, well, certainly, you can think of a number of countries that have been involved in such activities. Ours is one of them. […] And so, the terrorist, of course, is in the eye of the beholder.

You want to stretch the meaning of terrorism to include the activity of Australian soldiers in war zones, which then leads to pathological moral inversions that are almost too hideous to consider on a rated PG blog.

You are saying — Hey, we ARE the terrorists so when religious fanatics blow up our innocent children and neighbours it is entirely fair dinkum. The suicide mass murderer is the real victim we created and the civilians the bombers slaughter were really killed by our actions.

As Noam Chomsky believes the 3,000 civilian victims of 911 deserved to be mass murdered for past US government policy he believes to be invidious.

Ultimate, this perverse moral inversion leads to today — the Iman of the Ground-Zero mosque declares that he would build elsewhere but he has put the mosque 2 blocks from the mass grave of 911 because if he doesn’t there will be mass murdering suicide bombers coming for ya! You see, those evil terrorist Americans are at it again terrorising people, provoking a whole new wave of innocent victims to come blow themselves up in shopping malls and bar mitzvahs. Chickens coming home to roost, eh Allen?

It’s now to the point were a lone nut in Florida who wants to burn Korans has the President and the top American general in Afghanistan begging him to reconsider. We incite our own mass murder simply by existing as a free democratic society dedicated to civil liberties for all.

There is little use engaging someone cognitively unable to discern the difference between a highly-trained uniformed Australian soldiers attempting to follow strict rules of engagement (and possibly coming up short) in the heat of combat and a Sharia-cult suicide bomber purposefully murdering as many civilians as possible (usually as far away from real war zones as possible) in order to attain 72 virgins in paradise.

No doubt you also believe that we are environmental terrorists who, by our very existence, warrant our own extinction.

As Noam Chomsky believes the 3,000 civilian victims of 911 deserved to be mass murdered for past US government policy he believes to be invidious.

No, Chompsky is opposed to terrorism in any form.

We incite our own mass murder simply by existing as a free democratic society dedicated to civil liberties for all.

No, but interfering in the affairs of another country is not without consequences.

There is little use engaging someone cognitively unable to discern the difference between a highly-trained uniformed Australian soldiers attempting to follow strict rules of engagement (and possibly coming up short) in the heat of combat and a Sharia-cult suicide bomber purposefully murdering as many civilians as possible (usually as far away from real war zones as possible) in order to attain 72 virgins in paradise.

I can determine the difference but your reason for this diatribe eludes me.

“It ain’t what a man doesn’t know that gets him in trouble — it’s what he knows that ain’t so.”

1, This quote is not accurate “wiping Israel off the map.” this is an understandable misunderstanding due to translation from one langauge to another. The actual quote is “The regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time,”

Gosh, given the long history of respect for the Jews by Moslems, this must mean by a peaceful election, you think?

“…the only one to unleash such horror on innocent civilians…”

You seem to be suffering from too much liberal “(re)education”; The version of history you are referring to doesn’t have much relationship to the version supported by historical documents.

3, In regards to “poor little Israel” the only thing i need to read to get a good understanding of the situation is all the UN resolutions Israel has ignored, apparently the deal was after the war Israelis could go and live in Palistine as Palistinians….they are well worth the read.

Well, now I know where you’re getting your history. Living in a free country, you should be able to do better than just reading the work of a committee composed of a majority of tyrannies.

5, No one asked you to be world policemen so stop doing it, police dont go around the world killing brown people so stop it.

Well now, there are a lot of people in the US who would rather we conduct our foreign policy the way Europeans do — “What’s in it for me?” Perhaps someday you’ll get your wish. (Check out European history to get a preview of what it will be like.)

No wonder most of the planet think your country sucks.

If it’s a question of believing the world’s blowhards, or those who vote with their feet (you know: those who are willing to uproot their lives and risk everything on a new start in a foreign land) — I’ll go with the ones who bet their lives. Most of the world’s peasants seem to have a better grasp of reality than you — perhaps they haven’t been blessed with as much education indoctrination.

I posted a reply at #165 with a correction at #166 and I see that my posts are tagged, “Your comment is awaiting moderation.”

Let me get see if I understand this, I am told to “Stuff it” by another poster and that comment is not “moderated” but my comments are awaiting moderation? That is a hypocritical double standard. Maybe if I was carrying water for muslim terrorists my comments would not have been moderated? I don’t know.

This is not my website and I hold Jo Nova in the highest regards. It has been a pleasure posting here and thanks for the memories.

Jo doesn’t do all the moderating personally — send her an email and see what is going on.

I’m not seeing the numbers you are — maybe there is a screw up in the posting. It’s happened before – I’ve had some hang up due to the automatic trolling software being triggered by some unknown interaction.

Anyway, please don’t leave — your posts are valuable, informative, humorous (sometimes at the same time) and treasured by many (if not all!).

I don’t have a clue what is going on. But don’t get all PO’d… your voice here is really important. I know I stop and read all your comments, usually twice and I usually learn something. Besides it’s spring and in a week shearing starts and I’m outta here for the season, so Jo will be short on the ramparts while I’m away.

Yesterday I wrote a comment and then decided not to submit it because, well, we are way off topic… that, and I know I’m a loud blow hard too. I kind of felt bad for all sides and wanted to set it back right again. Here’s what I wrote:

* * *

To our American friends:

After re-reading the off-topic Oz-Yank piss contest above, allow me one last reconciliatory comment for the record.

Aussies love a good punch up. I know I do (did). The tradition is that we bash each other out in front of the pub then go back inside and buy each other beers to wash the blood out of our gums. Not that that’s really allowed nowadays, (except in the Northern Territory) You’d get sued. That’s something you Americans taught us, you can sue anyone, anytime for anything. Who knew?

Ironically, some Aussies, (I’m thinking me in particular) probably know America better than any American commenter here knows Australia. In general we think that Americans ought to get out more, you know, see the world they saved.

Aussies love to think they have a subtle “laconic” sense of humour beyond the pitch of what Americans can hear, but in my experience both peoples are about equally slow to the punch line if only in different ways.

Americans have no worried about their cultural identity but really do get seriously uptight when it comes to political critiques, it’s the reverse with Australians who causally diss their government all the time, but get seriously pissed when their identity is challenged. Aussies won’t admit it, but they are very nationalistic culturally. Even the most cynical Aussie tears up at Anzac Day dawn service:

I think that’s the basis of our misunderstandings here. Aussies don’t share Yankee sensitivities about US foreign policy history and Yanks don’t understand Aussie pride (and somewhat fragile ego) over our identity as an independent and unique people beholden to no one.

When the New England colonies revolted from the motherland, the Crown sent Captain Cook to look for new lands to colonize in the South Pacific. He surveyed the east coast of Australia and New Zealand. The First Fleet was sent to Botany Bay in 1788 solely because the Brits could no longer trade or send exiles to Virginia…If the American Revolution had not happened there would not be an anglo Australia. Thus, we are brothers and sisters connect not only by history, shared battles and culture but also by blood. For if America hadn’t revolted most Aussies would be Americans. And if it had revolted earlier many Americans would be Aussie!

So three cheers for the United States of America and Australia, may the two old friends never be divided!

If we were at my local pub I’d shout you guys a round now and we would all have a good laugh…at the expense of the bloody whingeing poms!

Eddy; I doubt that your posts have been intentionally deleted and I hope you continue to post here. The beauty of living in a democracy is the ability for people to express differing views. The problem with blogging is that due to the impersonal nature of the exchange it can easily get out of hand. It is different than having a face to face discussion over a few beers, sometimes more than a few, where generally the exchange is more civilized and one agrees to differ and changes the subject. I buggered if I know how a post on the elections in Oz became a foreign policy food fight but shit happens.

And now that Eddy’s post has showed up may we remember why we all read and post here? It’s not because we’re looking for a fight with each other is it? It’s because we have a common foe that UNITES us in a common fight against that common foe. Our fight transcends national boundaries.

We can’t look at the things that divide us. There are too many things that unite us and they are the worthwhile things.

I admit that I contributed to what happened and I hereby apologize to any who were offended by my rant about the mosque. It wasn’t the right thing to do.

Eddy’s departure, whether it proves permanent or not, caused me to examine my own part again.

Thank you, Jo, for responding to my email. I want to take this opportunity to apologize to you, Jo, as well as all the posters who have taught me so much in such a short period of time. Sometimes we let the things that are going on in our lives influence us to make hasty or erroneous decisions. That is what I have done, unfortunately. Again, I am sorry.

I have always held Australians in the highest regards.I have come to consider many of the regulars who comment here to be my friends. I would very much like to visit Australia someday and meet with you in person. If my cancer continues to stay in remission I plan on doing so in a year or so.

So Eddie, America is not really alone but part of the Anglo family. We’re your best friends.

If the English are the salt of the Earth then the Aussies are the rain that nourishes the soil.

There is only one question to answer….If not the USofA then who?
The UN? Don’t make me laugh.
The EU? Don’t make me cry.
The Russians? Don’t make me swear.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion (in the west) but some of the opinions expressed on this thread would have benefitted from some thought before posting.
I hope to see some apologies and handshakes very soon….please.

The current trend of civilization goes beyond any one country — read Churchill’s “History of the English Speaking Peoples”. The currents that are operating now (for the good of the world, in general, I believe) had their start quite a few centuries ago.

We are all a part of Churchill’s broad group — I will drink to that with you, when I (finally) get to Australia. (I work with an Australian, and have several as neighbors & friends.)

To those who think that Americans are a little prickly about criticism — Man, you should see what goes on in political debates here! We may tend to pull out the big guns too soon, as we are used to the “no holds barred” style in the political trenches at home. I’ve yet to hear any criticism from abroad that matched what happens here all the time. The really fringe stuff rarely makes the international news, but is easily found in any American town. (It’s getting more exposure via the internet nowadays, also.)

It occasionally turns violent; but, Americans being mostly an armed nation, that doesn’t worry us as much as you might think. (There is a reason that American burglars spend much of their time trying to make sure they don’t break into an occupied house.)

At any rate — please forgive us (and remind us) if we come on too strong here — we’re not really mad, just getting ready for a good fight (Aussies should understand this).

Thanks, Baa. I appreciate the fact that you have always been a friend and that you have always had my back. Thanks also to Bob C, Roy Hogue, Allen McMahon and Wes George.

As a citizen of the U.S. I do not see myself as being any better or worse than anyone else simply because we are from different countries. However, when someone talks down on my country I will always defend it.